Shiver
by Michelle
Summary: Early in their partnership, Clint and Natasha go undercover in Russia. Things do not go according to plan.


_Thanks to euphoricsound over on tumblr for reading through this! 3_

_Here's another cottoncandy-bingo prompt, this time for "too hot/too cold". Enjoy!_

* * *

The party was nice, he'd give the Russians that. Beluga caviar, bottles of Dom, and everything served on real fucking silver platters – they sure didn't miss a beat with their attempts to impress. Of course, Clint would be happier with pizza and beer, but when in Rome . . .

Or, you know, when 50 miles outside of St. Petersburg at a party held in a secret castle by international arms dealers. Same diff.

He and Natasha were on their own for this one; they weren't even on comms, which made him more nervous than he'd like to admit. He'd long since grown used to the invisible presence of SHIELD, even kind of liked it now, liked knowing that someone would bail him out if things went south. If something went wrong here, they'd have to rely on cell phones for backup. Cell phones that may or may not have reception in backwoods places like these.

That sort of thing didn't faze Natasha though. She'd always preferred to work alone and had balked the first time he handed her an earpiece. She was much happier when she could do and say anything she wanted without someone "breathing down her neck." Sometimes he was surprised that they worked as well together as they did, that she let him watch her back, but then again, Natasha was full of surprises.

As it turned out, they were a shockingly good team, with him on the periphery and her up close and personal, and though theirs may have been a partnership fraught with mishaps, they certainly got things done. They had the highest success rate of any SHIELD team, actually. So even with the discomfort of radio silence and the lack of backup, Clint was reasonably sure that luck would favor them and they'd be in and out before anyone noticed, along with the missile launch codes these idiots had somehow obtained.

He sipped at the champagne Natasha had handed him a few minutes ago. She'd smiled that coy, inscrutable smile of hers and sauntered off, wending her way through the crowd, working her magic, and stealing secrets from the unsuspecting. He couldn't help being entranced by her, the way she moved, the way her hair spilled across her shoulder, the long column of her throat . . .

He forced himself to look away, taking a long swallow of his drink as he tamped down the tender (and not so tender) feelings she evoked in him. This was neither the time nor the place. He had to keep his head in the game, something that was becoming increasingly difficult as of late. Granted, she'd always been distracting, but he'd gotten damn good at ignoring it. The trouble was that the more he got to know her, what made her tick and, more importantly, what made her smile, the less he was able to disregard her considerable charms. Worse still, the less he even wanted to ignore them.

Well, at least the mission seemed to be going according to plan. Their cover IDs were holding; it wasn't hard to buy that Natasha was a ballerina turned model, even if he thought his cover as her millionaire investor husband was a little hard to swallow. No one had batted an eye, however, so maybe he was just too used to seeing himself as a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. They played their roles well enough, though Clint would be the first to admit that Natasha was the pro at this kind of thing. He hung back, tried to keep a somewhat low profile even as Natasha flitted around, ostensibly on the lookout for new work. He kept to the walls, walked around bragging about his hot wife and fancy cars, showing both off to anyone who would look at the pictures on his phone.

And Jesus, those _pictures_ . . . Maybe if he hadn't been the one to take them, the one to watch her pose and pout, maybe then he wouldn't be having such a problem concentrating right now. The dress she was wearing left little enough to the imagination, and it was something of a predicament that he didn't have to do much imagining anymore.

He turned his attention back to the dark haired man with whom he was chatting idly. The guy was about his age and was clearly impressed that Clint was married to a woman like Natasha. The idiot didn't stop talking even as he tracked Natasha's movements around the room, which was starting to annoy Clint. No, he wasn't _actually_ married to her, but no one here knew that. Clint gritted his teeth and bore it though, because even if he couldn't get any information out of the pervert (which was increasingly likely), he was supposed to be mingling, not punching other guys in the face for staring at Natasha.

Besides, if the man was looking at her, he wasn't looking at Clint, which meant that Clint could keep his attention focused on the exits and the guards, things that she wouldn't have the chance to see as the center of attention.

Everything seemed to be moving along smoothly, so it was a shock when he saw Natasha walking swiftly through the crowd in his direction. She had on what he'd slowly come to recognize as her panic face, her eyes almost imperceptibly widened and her breathing elevated. After making excuses with the dark haired man (who was much too entranced by her cleavage to notice anything amiss), she grabbed Clint by the arm and pulled him over to the wall, away from prying eyes and too curious ears.

"What's going on?" He kept his voice low.

Her grip on his arm tightened, and he could tell she was more agitated than she appeared. "I saw someone who knew me."

"Someone?" He asked, even though he already knew what she meant; it really could only mean one thing. "Red Room?"

She nodded curtly, then curled into him as if they really were a young, married couple sharing a private moment. Forcing himself not to notice how neatly she fit against him, he asked, "Did they make you?"

She twined her arms around his neck, her face so close to him that he could feel her warm breath on his throat. "I don't think so," she whispered, and his traitorous brain registered her tone for something it definitely wasn't. "She was relatively new when I . . . left, so it's possible that she doesn't even know who I am." Her nose brushed his cheek as she spoke, and he felt himself stir in places that most certainly should not be stirring at this moment.

He cleared his throat, drew his hand along her jaw (just to make it look good, of course). "Recommendation?"

"We leave. Now." She actually looked nervous, and anything that made Natasha nervous, terrified him. His brain clicked over to alert mode then, spurred on by a surge of adrenaline.

"Can you point her out to me?"

"The blonde in the green dress over in the left corner," she said, and he pretended to lean down to kiss her cheek, brushing his lips against her so he could take a closer look without being noticed. He caught sight of the woman she described surrounded by a gaggle of dark suited men, and she was laughing at something. Now that Natasha pointed the woman out, he could tell that she was Red Room, if nothing more than by the subtle similarities with his partner.

"Is she here alone?" he asked.

Natasha nodded her head slightly, a single forward tip, and she drew her hands down to rest on his chest. "We always work alone."

He raised an eyebrow at that, covered one of her hands with his own, and smiled softly at her. "Worked, Nat. Not work."

His gesture did the trick because she smiled gratefully at him, and watched her face as the last traces of her panic dissipated. Just like that, his calm, steady partner was back.

"Exit strategy?" She murmured, and he considered their options.

"Pretend like you're drunk. We're going out the front," he ordered at last, and he was gratified to see that she trusted him to know what to do. Without so much as a raised eyebrow, she fell into her role, sagging heavily against him and clinging to his arm as they walked.

They drew numerous stares on their trip to the coat check, but Natasha kept her face covered through somewhat distracting use of the side of his neck, and he was reasonably certain that they'd avoided the attention of the attendee in question. All the same, Natasha let her hair fall into her face as he helped her into her woefully inadequate coat, and once their car was brought around, they were in the wind.

Until said car hit something in the road and spun out over the edge of an embankment.

Clint was really fucking glad Natasha had taken the wheel, switching places with him as soon as they'd cleared the gatehouse and freeing him up to shoot if they were followed. Man, did she know how to handle a car. Under normal circumstances, he found it extremely sexy, though right now . . . fuck, who was he kidding. Right now, he considered it insanely hot that she'd kept the car from flipping, and if they hadn't just skidded down a short slope into a tree, he'd probably be sporting wood.

"You okay?" he asked, a little dazed but uninjured. The front end of the car might be smashed in, but he knew better than to tense up during a crash.

Natasha grimaced as she turned her neck experimentally. "Yeah, I think so. You?"

"Yeah, fine," he said, flexing his legs a little. "Coulson's gonna be pissed about the car, though," he slipped off his seatbelt.

She snorted as she unfastened her seat belt. "Well, then maybe next time he'll listen to my advice and not give us some piece of shit sports car when I specifically requested an SUV for this terrain." She rubbed the back of her neck while he chuckled appreciatively.

"Why don't you get him on the horn while I see if we can get the car back on the road." As an afterthought, he added, "Pop the trunk?"

She nodded and reached for her handbag as he zipped his coat and grabbed a flashlight. A quick examination outside revealed that they weren't going anywhere soon, so he pulled the emergency kit out of the trunk and tossed it into the car in front of him. He kicked the snow off his shoes and pants as best he could before he sat down inside, where he was greeted by a rather grim looking Natasha.

"No signal," she said simply.

"Front tires are blown," he replied, handing her the wool blanket he found in the trunk, smiling grimly as she spread it over her legs. He might be wearing a wool suit and a thick down coat, but Natasha was in an evening gown, and the matching jacket was thin, designed only to ward off the chill during short walks between house and car.

They stared out the cracked windshield for a long minute, and he was sure she was thinking the same thoughts that he was. They couldn't risk hoofing it back to the party; it was night and already too cold, considering their lack of equipment. It was equally stupid to stand on the side of the road and wait for a passerby; the road was not well travelled, so while they would probably just encounter party guests with too many questions, with their luck, the person who stopped to pick them up would be the one person they were trying to avoid.

At least the snow hadn't been sticking to the ground when they went off the road; there were no easily discernible tracks that would give away their position. If, however, they didn't check in with Coulson in the next six hours, their handler would activate the tracking beacon and send backup. If he didn't, well, they could reconsider their options if they had to.

"So," Clint began, drawing out the syllable and letting it hang in the air for a few seconds. "We wait?"

She heaved out a sigh. "Yeah. We wait."

He leaned over to check the fuel gauge; if they could get the car to start, maybe there'd at least be some heat in here. The little that had been generated during their short drive had dissipated somewhat when he'd opened the door, and the cold was starting to seep in. It was well below freezing outside, and there was a good chance the temperature would drop further during the night. "Have you tried to start it back up?"

Natasha twisted the key in the ignition, humoring him even though they both already knew it was a lost cause; the car had sputtered and died when they hit the tree. When the engine didn't turn over, she smacked the steering wheel in frustration, cursed.

"Well, shit, Romanov, tell me what you really think," Clint teased.

"You don't understand how cold it's going to get without heat."

He shrugged. "I once spent a winter outside Chicago in the back of a carnie van." Maybe it wasn't quite a Russian winter, but it was awful close.

She looked taken aback by that, as if it was information she hadn't expected. "I didn't realize. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "There were, like, six other people sharing the van with me and my brother, so we didn't freeze to death or anything. Not that it was pleasant, mind you."

Natasha looked over at him, amused. "Eight people in a van? What part of that doesn't sound pleasant?"

He chuckled. "Well, for starters, Barney had just reached that age where farting was _hilarious_."

She wrinkled her nose, turned to stare out the window into the night, her posture changing slightly as she lost herself in thought. At long last, with her old accent tinting her voice, she said, "When I first came to the Room, I shared my cell with nine other girls." She grew silent again, remained that way for so long that he thought she was done, but then she started speaking again. "By the time I finished my training, I was the only one."

He took this snippet of her former life for what it was – a sign of trust, a sign that she wanted to relate to him and wanted him to relate to her, even if her stories were always so much more gruesome than his.

When she spoke to him of her past, he just listened, treating her like a spooked horse, careful not to make sudden movements. He didn't ask, never would ask what happened to the other girls; if she wanted him to know, she would tell him, and it was enough that he knew that she had nightmares about them sometimes. She'd told him certain things, bits and pieces over the past few years, and the little that he'd learned made his heart break for Natasha. At least his brother had tried to watch out for him. Natasha's "sisters" would have killed her as soon as looked at her.

They let the car grow silent because there really wasn't anything good to say after that, working in tandem to silently assess their situation. Natasha was waving her phone around, holding it at various angles to test reception while he rummaged through the emergency kit, half-heartedly hoping for a granola bar or a satellite phone, but only coming up with matches and jumper cables.

The noise started so small that he didn't even realize what he was hearing at first, thought it might be an animal outside or some such, but when it grew louder, he realized that it was coming from Natasha. Her teeth were chattering, and when he looked at her, he saw that her shoulders were shaking sporadically, as if she were repressing it, pretending that the cold didn't bother her.

"Nat?"

She didn't answer the question in his voice, just kept her eyes focused on the phone in her hands. "Still no signal."

"Nat." His raised his voice a bit, and even he could hear the concern in his voice.

"There's no sense in getting upset about it," she continued. "Coulson will send backup in a couple hours."

"_Nat._" He was almost shouting, and the sound echoed in the tiny car.

She dropped her hands to her lap. "What, Clint?"

"You're cold."

She snorted at that. "Astute observation. It is fucking cold out here, if you haven't noticed."

"Stop deflecting," he reached out toward her, and when he laid a tentative hand on one of hers, he almost recoiled. "Fuck, you're freezing!"

She shrugged him off. "It's fine."

"The hell it is. Why didn't you say something?" He both hated and loved the fact that she tried to hide these things from him. Loved because it was just so _her_ to pretend like the cold didn't affect her, and hated because, well, he worried about her.

"It's fine," she repeated, as if that would end the conversation.

Well, he wasn't having any of that. "Climb into my lap."

She blinked, startled. "Excuse me?"

He sighed, exasperated. "Come here. We can share body heat." He slid his seat all the way back to make room for her, tactfully ignoring her stunned expression.

When he did work up the nerve to look, he found her still staring at him.

"What?" he said, as if asking his partner to sit on his lap were the most normal thing in the world. "I don't like watching you shiver."

"I . . ." she paused, and he could see some internal debate rage through her, but eventually her desire for warmth won out. "Okay."

It was an awkward process, helping her across the center console and into his lap, ending up with her sitting with her legs still in the driver's seat and her back toward the passenger door. The blanket, he realized, was smaller than he'd thought, and at this angle, she couldn't get her whole body underneath it.

"Um, this is . . ." she began, but then he caught her eye, and they both laughed to dispel the tension in the air. She relaxed into him when he tightened his right arm around her shoulders, and he could tell she was already starting to feel a little warmer.

"Here," he said, reaching down with his left hand to help her out of her shoes. The heels were worthless in the cold, and her feet felt like popsicles in tights. "Shit, Nat," he said, shifting in his seat so he could get her feet closer to their bodies and underneath the wool blanket. He kept his hand on them, trying to impart some of his body heat to her extremities.

"Thanks," she whispered, and there was that _tone_ again, the one that didn't mean what his dick thought it meant, but she was sitting in his lap, soft and pliant and wriggling to get comfortable, and suddenly their crappy situation didn't matter because now he had to worry about what she was going to do to him when she felt his interest.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait long. She turned her face toward him, so close in the confined space that there was maybe an inch between their noses, and she stared, surprised.

Finally, she said, "If you wanted to screw me, you didn't have to do all this. You could have just asked."

It was his turn to be shocked, honestly unsure of what to do. There was no trace of sarcasm in her voice, just blunt offering, and part of him was screaming "YES!" while doing a victory dance, ordering him to ask her if that was all it took. The rational, above the waist part of him was reminding him to proceed with caution. It had only been in the past year that Natasha had started to drop her guard around him; she actually told him things now, things about her past that no one else knew. Things like how she'd been forced to kill at least three of the other girls in her group in the Red Room. Things like why her contract with SHIELD stipulated that she would never be sent on a mission where she actually had to sleep with a mark to keep her cover.

So when she practically offered herself up to him, no matter how much he wanted to throw caution to the wind, he stopped himself because even if it meant that they never went any further than a few cover-necessary kisses, he couldn't bear to risk her friendship.

"That's not what . . ." He swallowed hard, tried again. "I didn't want you to sit on my lap so I could get into your pants."

"Well, since we're here . . ." She lowered her eyelids a bit, drew closer to him and stared at his lips, looking for all the world as she did when she was luring in a mark.

It was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown on him. "Stop it, Nat. Don't do that with me."

She looked at him quizzically, then blushed and backed off. Little dots of red appeared on her cheeks as she unwound her arms from his neck, and it was such an unusual look for her that it took him a moment to identify it. When he did, he realized that he was actually seeing a flustered Natasha Romanov.

"Oh! No . . . I . . ." She stammered, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sorry. I . . . misinterpreted," she finished lamely.

He was stunned that he'd provoked genuine embarrassment in her, couldn't figure out why she would be embarrassed, unless . . .

"You weren't trying to play me, were you?" He asked quietly, recalling suddenly that she'd only ever used sex as a weapon. "You were serious."

Her eyes were a little bloodshot, and if she weren't Natasha, he would suspect that she was halfway to tears. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should have known that you wouldn't want to, you've never made a pass at me and I don't know how to do _this _like a normal person anyway so I shouldn't have thought . . ." she babbled, motioning between them with one hand, withdrawing into herself.

He grabbed her waving hand, tried to stop her. "Nat."

She continued to ramble, not really registering that he was saying anything.

". . . and God, I'm so sorry, Clint, please don't think I'm trying to manipulate you. I'm just cold and you're so warm and I haven't been able to get you out of my fucking head for _months_. And then you invite me onto your lap and there's _this_," she motioned toward the cause of their strife that was still tenting the front of his trousers. "And dammit, I've never had a friend before and I don't want to fuck this up, please don't let this fuck us up, oh fuck . . ."

"Nat," he tried again, more forcefully this time, and he squeezed her hand to get her attention. Her eyes cleared a little, and he thought he saw the frightened girl she never was behind her eyes.

"Yeah?" She asked, and he's never heard that sound from her before, the timidity and fear of uncertainty.

"Shut up."

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

It was tentative at first, just a press of his lips to hers, both of them a little too stunned for anything else. But then she breathed out, a little sigh that melted into a moan, and she twined her arms around his neck to hold him closer.

It wasn't perfect or earth shaking or any of those things that people use to describe their first kiss with someone special, but maybe that was because this wasn't their first kiss, not really. They'd kissed before, in other ways - the firm clasp of a helping hand when one of them had fallen, or a shoulder to lean on when they were injured, or shooting the enemy that snuck up from behind and might have gotten through. They'd kissed in the traditional sense, too, lip to lip with mingling breath, but never because they chose to do it for themselves. When he thinks of this moment in the days and weeks and years to come, he will always consider this their first kiss, the first time they'd thrown pretense aside and just took simple pleasure in the other.

When they parted, her lips were swollen and the blush in her cheeks had spread, and he didn't think he'd ever seen anything more beautiful in his life. She smiled then, a real smile, the corners of her mouth stretched wide and her teeth showing, the same grin she wore whenever she succeeded at something truly breathtaking.

"So the 'let's share body heat' thing really wasn't an excuse?" she asked.

He looked upward. "Well . . ."

She smacked him a little, playfully, and he decided he liked this side of Natasha and wanted to see it more often. As often as possible, really.

She kissed him this time, more passionately than the first, her tongue fighting with his for dominance, and he'd be afraid that she was using her body like she was taught, like a tool, except he was pretty sure that neither one of them was losing this battle, and if she was trying to be smooth, then perhaps she wouldn't be jabbing him painfully in the side with her knee as she tried to straddle him. He touched one hand to the offending limb, moved it so the pressure wasn't so great, but the adjustment caused her to drop her whole weight down on him.

"Is that a Sig Sauer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" She grinned as she rolled her hips, and her lips parted when she encountered his "piece" again. She slid her hand down between them, seeking out his hardness where it pressed against her, all the while fixing a bright smile on him. He beamed right back at her, happiness welling inside of him, and when he pressed up against her and grabbed her hips to hold her in place, both of them gasped at the friction.

And then there was too much fabric between them, and he couldn't really feel her, so he reached up to undo the buttons on her jacket even as she pulled the zipper down on his. It was too cold to lose layers, he knew, but at least this way, they could feel each other's warmth better. She shivered again, and he liked to think it was only partly from the cold. But then she leaned into him, slid her arms inside his coat and around his waist, and as she kissed him once more, he could feel her slowly heat up in his arms.

She writhed against him as they explored each other's mouths, and fuck, he had to stop her from moving like that because it had been a really damn long time for him, and he was about to come in his pants.

He held her hips firmly to still her movement. "You've got to stop that, darlin'."

"Hmm?" She ventured, trailing her lips along his jaw until she found his earlobe and _oh_ that was nice . . .

"Shit, Nat, hang on," he tried again.

She started fumbling with the fastenings on his slacks then, and it was only a single moment of situational awareness that had him reaching to stop her hands.

"I don't have . . . anything," he said. "I wasn't exactly planning this."

She swatted his hands away and continued working even as she looked him in the eye. "Are you clean?"

"Yes," he answered. SHIELD ordered a full physical every six months for all of its active agents, which included the full battery of STD testing amongst other things, so he was always aware of his status.

She nodded, continued undoing his pants. "So am I."

He hated being awkward, but since they were already doing so well at it, he figured he'd ask the next one. "What about . . .?"

She cut him off with such a look of sadness that his heart nearly stopped. "They took that choice away from me," she said, and he could tell from the way the word "choice" left her lips that it was the worst part for her; not being given the agency over her own body, not being allowed to make the choice for herself. Though he'd never taken her for the motherly type, he started to wonder what she dreamed about when she was a little girl, before they took her and changed her into a killing machine.

But those thoughts were much too serious to entertain when she banished her sadness and smiled guilelessly at him. She skimmed her hands down into his pants, and then she had her hands wrapped around him and he forgot all about awkwardly questioning his partner about her sexual history and focused on better things, like the firm press of her breasts against his chest.

His coat was too big for him to really maneuver, and he was desperate to touch her, so he slipped his arms out of the sleeves, relying on the press of his back to keep the coat up around his shoulders. Holding her gaze, he trailed his fingertips up her inner thigh and, finding her panties well soaked already, he caressed her, watched her bite her lip as he rubbed the most sensitive part of her. She started to giggle at his ministrations, and he would have been hurt except that she was bucking against his hand and clutching at his waist.

"I need you in me," she whimpered, and then she was helping him get his pants down over his ass, and man, this was a little graceless, and he wondered how people managed to do this if they weren't as flexible as he and Natasha were.

At last all reasoned thought was gone, because Natasha pushed her panties to one side and guided him into her, sinking slowly down, inch by glorious inch, and quaking around him as she stretched to accommodate his size. When they were fully joined, he opened his eyes to find her staring right back at him, the most unguarded he'd ever seen her, and it was kind of like the entire world broke out from under him because _fuck_.

They moved slowly, rocking together, panting and moaning, and he'd certainly never imagined that his first time with her would be like this, in the front seat of a wrecked car after a blown mission, but then he'd never really let himself think too much about what their first time really would be like anyway because that felt too much like tempting fate.

He had started to feel his orgasm build when she reached down between them to finger herself, and he could feel the motions of her hand against her clit as he helped raise and lower her on his cock. Their position was so frighteningly intimate, the way they were breathing each other's air, swallowing each other's gasps, and it had never felt like this before, not with anyone.

He wasn't surprised, not really. They'd always moved together instinctively, complemented each other in ways that neither had ever experienced - why should this act be any different? What he hadn't expected was the surge of emotion that went along with it, didn't realize that his heart would be so involved in dictating his movements, and as her slick heat enveloped him and they clung to each other, he felt truly warm for the first time since they landed in Russia.

"Fuck, Nat, I've wanted this for so long," he murmured, not even caring if he was revealing too much because she had too, and it was okay because it was Natasha and he trusted her with every part of him, even the embarrassing parts. He wanted nothing more than to feel her around him, to soak her into his skin and never let go because she was beautiful and perfect and deadly and _Natasha_. His hands were wandering everywhere, exploring her, committing her form to memory, and when he dragged one hand from her waist to palm her breast through the fabric of her dress, she tore her mouth from his with a decidedly inelegant squeak.

At last, too soon she was coming, sobbing out his name and burying her face in his neck. He was a thrust behind her, erupting into her even as her tremors subsided.

Then the world was still.

"Clint?" She breathed into his neck.

"Yeah?" He pressed his lips to her forehead.

"We should do this more often."

They laughed for a long moment, and when they'd cleaned up and readjusted their clothes, he pulled the blanket over her and cradled her close, letting her fall asleep tucked into his lap, her shivers well and truly banished.


End file.
